


Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning?

by Adarian



Series: History of Middle Earth AUs and Explorations [4]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, M/M, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Platonic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 05:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10237007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adarian/pseuds/Adarian
Summary: In an early version of The Two Towers, Gimli and Legolas abandoned Aragorn after the Fellowship broke apart and headed towards home. They were captured and tortured at Isengard until the Ents destroyed the operation there. This is an imagining of what that alternative section could have looked like.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So like reading History of Middle-Earth is both the best thing and the worst thing because it gives you so many potentials but also like makes you want to thank Illuvatar that Tolkien didn't do half the stuff he initially thought were good ideas.
> 
> This piece was inspired by a plot summary in the Treason of Isengard (Vol 7 of HOME), truly Tolkien's favourite genre of writing, where at Amon Hen Boromir decides to switch teams and go Evil, Aragorn ditches everyone to go become King early to fight Boromir, and Legolas and Gimli were like screw this, we're out. Legolas wants to go to Lothlorien and Gimli back to Erebor so they travel together (even they're going opposite directions?). Then they get captured and it's bad and it's Merry and Pippin to the rescue!
> 
> Also when I was tagging this I realized no one has ever written a fic about my boyfriend Trotter? How?? This may be remedied at some point because my wooden shoed proto-Aragorn hobbit needs so much love my poor baby.

Things fell apart. That was the only way to explain what had just occurred. Nine of them had left Rivendell. Eight had survived to Amon Hem. And now...now they were scattered. Frodo and Sam were gone. Merry and Pippin were either captured or dead. Boromir had betrayed them and Aragorn had left for Gondor to take his crown and his rightful place as King. 

Which left two lonely people on the shores of the great river, looking at each other over a campfire as they decided silently what to do next. 

Gimli was torn. He had sworn to stay true to the Fellowship but now there was little that he could do to aid the Ringbearer. The only thing he could potentially do was an attempt to rescue Merry and Pippin. But he was no Ranger and he did not know this part of the world. It was not something he could accomplish on his own, even if the pair was still alive.

And if he was being honest with himself, he wanted to be home. If this was the end of days, he wanted to spend it with his family. Gimli had seen too much in Moira and it made him long for the comfort of his father. If they had so little time, was it so terrible a thing to spend it with the last of his loved ones?

He was unsure how to express this to Legolas. He and the elf were certainly getting a long better than they had before, but he had no idea how he would respond.

To his surprise, Legolas spoke first. The elf lifted his head from his cloak, his grey eyes showing his own heartbreak. 

Legolas murmured, "In the morning we must move from this spot but I find I am too weary to even consider it. Name where your heart longs for, Master Dwarf."

"To the Lonely Mountain," Gimli said. "To home."

"That is a very long journey," Legolas replied, "and through dangerous territory."

Gimli gave a brief shrug. "You asked and I answered. Where calls you? Mirkwood?"

Legolas closed his eyes. "There is no peace for me there. I am too tired to stand at the frontlines, waiting for the war to reach us. The fight has left me. I would be as good as soldier as I would a tree."

"You are tall and fair enough to be one," Gimli joked.

Legolas did not smile. "My heart calls me to Lothlorien. I could find rest there, if the Lady will allow me."

"She would," Gimli confirmed. "I believe in her goodness, even in these dark times."

Legolas murmured, "It is good to have faith in something."

Gimli put his hand on his knee. "Lad, it is all right. Lothlorien is not far from here. A few days travel and you will have your rest."

Legolas put his hand over his. "Let us travel together while we can. I will go north with you for as long as I can before the journey takes me to the west. It will be a long time before you reach your home and I do not wish to be alone. If you will have me as your travelling companion."

Gimli nodded. "Of course."

Gimli did not want to point out that they were going in opposite directions but he would add a day or two more to his months long journey if it meant he had companionship for a little bit longer. 

***

When day broke, Gimli stirred to find Legolas fast asleep in the bedroll beside him. Gimli frowned. In their weeks together, he had only seen Legolas sleep once as the elf typically only shut his eyes for a few hours each night and Gimli tended to be out like a light from dusk until dawn. 

Gimli tried to gently wake him, but Legolas rolled over, pulling his blankets around him. Legolas fell back asleep and to Gimli's amusement, started to ever so lightly snore. If Gimli were the man who left Rivendell, he would have started laughing hysterically that the high and mighty elves snored like thunder. But Gimli worried for his friend and brushed the elf's hair from his face before tearing down the camp.

Legolas finally stirred when Gimli could not let them wait any longer. He readied without further complaint and the pair of them began their journey.

***

They were less than two days on the road when Legolas heard the heavy footsteps approaching. Gimli was in midst of a tedious story about roast mutton and Legolas tossed his hand over his mouth, silencing him. Gimli bit him and Legolas let go. 

"We are not alone," Legolas warned.

Gimli grasped the handle of his axe and muttered, "Neither are they. Whatever is in this wilderness with us is no match for us."

Legolas was about to disagree when the arrow pierced his shoulder. He fell to his knees, feeling the poison ebb into him. Gimli stood in front of him, looking around to see where the attack had come from.

"Get up, lad," Gimli ordered. "Get up if you can."

Legolas struggled as the orcs came into his line of sight. Gimli helped him to his feet and Legolas shakily readied his bow, his arm crying out in pain.

The poison struck again and he fell, gasping. The rest was a blur. He could hear Gimli call for him, cry at him to stand. Then rough hands grasped him. The smell was not elf or dwarf. It was wrong. 

Legolas understood little of the Orcish tongue, but he knew enough to recognize two words: Mirkwood. Greenleaf.

He had so little sense of the world, but his vision remained clear. He looked up and murmured, "They're taking us to Isengard."

A blow landed on his head and everything went black.

***

Legolas stirred on the cold hard ground. He was stripped out of his riding clothes and in his undergarments. He turned his head to see Gimli in the same state of undress. Gimli was out cold and Legolas immediately checked his pulse and breath. He was alive, just unconscious. Their captors had clearly been rougher with him.

An Uruk-hai stood in front of their cell and Legolas became conscious of their surroundings. They were underground, perhaps hundreds of feet. If he looked past the creature, he could see furnaces and cauldrons. He smelled hot metal and could see from here the steam rising towards the far sky.

The Uruk-hai commanded something to the orcs beside it and the cell door opened. Legolas tried to get past them but the Uruk-hai hit him hard, knocking him down. The orcs grabbed Gimli and dragged him away. Legolas threw himself at the Uruk-hai who grasped Legolas by the throat and held him high. 

The creature hissed, "The White Wizard told us not to kill you, little princeling, but I will destroy you if you strike me again."

"I'd rather die than be a pawn of Saruman," Legolas spat. "You might as well do it now before I maim you."

"They have taken your dwarf friend to the rack," it said. "If you are dead and he does not talk, we have no reason to keep him alive. Remember that."

The Uruk-hai threw him down and kicked his ribs with his iron boots until Legolas cried out in pain. It left and locked the door again. Legolas tried to catch his breath but it hurt too much to breathe. 

Legolas could hear screams throughout the cavern. Helplessly, he sat with his knees pressed against his chest and watched the world just beyond them, looking for some possibility of escape.

***

Gimli was brought back alive and bloody. Legolas was too distracted by his friend's pain to think of rushing the guard again. He helped Gimli onto his back as the cell door shut tight.

Gimli murmured, "Lie down with me. It hurts to look up at you."

Legolas did so, laying his hand on Gimli's. The dwarf met his gaze tiredly and Legolas wished there was something, anything he could do to help him.

"They asked me about the hobbits," Gimli said. "Of all four. What is there to say to them? We do not know where any of the hobbits are and if they think we are worth ransom than they are more flattering than they mean to be."

"Should we tell them falsehoods then?" Legolas asked. "We could buy them time."

Gimli thought this over and shook his head. "No. Better to go mute than to die lying through our teeth. There is honour in that."

"But are you not in pain?" Legolas asked.

There was a glimmer in the dwarf's eyes and Gimli smiled, wincing through the split in his lip. "Aye, that I am. But we both entered this fellowship knowing it might mean our deaths."

"I thought you entered because you did not trust an elf," Legolas laughed, his ribs throbbing with the effort.

"That too," Gimli replied, "but I will admit when pride has gotten the better of me. You...you have been a comfort to me even when I did not deserve it."

Legolas murmured, "You speak of Lothlorien?"

Gimli nodded. "I had said nothing but cruel things to you and yet you ignored your own kin to sit with me while I grieved mine. I do not know if I would have been so kind to you if we had found Mirkwood stripped bare."

Legolas shook his head. "No, but it is different too. Your father was captive in my lands and I imagine you have heard stories of cruelty."

"My father does not speak often of the quest for Erebor," Gimli replied. "Too many friends lost, too much blood spilled. He only told me of spiders. He had always been afraid of spiders since then."

Legolas agreed, "They are fiercesome. When I was a lad, about thirty or so, one caught me and a friend had to cut me free. Before this last hundred years, it was the most fearful moment of my life."

"I forget you are so old," Gimli said. "You seem so much like a boy to me. It must be that you have no beard. Even though I know you are immortal, you seem still so vibrant to me. Your kind always have seemed faded to me, never truly present. But you...you do truly love this world, don't you?"

Legolas felt suddenly weary. "We should sleep while they let us, master dwarf. You especially will need your strength."

"Gimli. If we are to die together, call me Gimli."

***

Legolas woke on Gimli's chest, the dwarf holding him protectively in his sleep. As his body was the only padding on the floor, Legolas was grateful, but he immediately freed himself and rose to his feet.

There was only a hint of natural light from the far sky but it was enough to help Legolas see their prison a bit more clearly. Their cell was a mere holding area built into the earth, a long thin walkway connecting it to other cells above and to the factory below. Legolas could hear their infernal machines, the metallic ringing of weapons cast and shaped until they were ready to kill.

Gimli stood beside him and murmured, "It is all right, lad."

"It is not," Legolas whispered. "This is where I die. Underground, away from all living things. Only darkness, only poison."

Gimli replied quietly, "Do not let them see your tears. They have not earned them." 

Legolas murmured, "But they will. One way or another they will."

***

When Gimli was on the rack, he thought of exactly four things in the exact same order. He went through them methodically, as if he were taking the same steps to polish a stone again and again.

The first was his father. Gloin large and healthy and in his prime. Gimli as a youth, his hand in his, as they walked into Erebor for the first time together. Gimli gasped, turning to see every glimpse of it he could. Gloin standing just to the side, his arm around his wife, Gimli's beloved mother. Both grinned, watching Gimli as he twirled beneath the stones of his ancestors. He was too old to be acting so young, but he felt such joy. And he turned to his father then and a weight seemed to be lifted from Gloin's shoulders. As if he had been holding a boulder and realized he could simply just put it down.

The next was of an emerald he had found five years beforehand. There was nothing particularly remarkable about that stone over any other, just that Gimli remembered it well. He could remember details about its cuts, about the weight of it in his hand, about the glints of green that shone in the firelight. 

Third was of Galadriel. He did not dwell on her long, only a quiet acknowledgment of her presence and of her gift, now lost to some twisted orc who did not realize the value of what it held. He thought of her radiance only briefly, not wanting to associate her with this place.

And the last, and the one that drew more and more of his attention was Legolas. He thought of their walks together in Lothlorien, the gentleness of his voice. It was the first moment he had thought of trees being beautiful and the first time he felt as if there was a chance for peace, even in such dark times. 

And then that made him think of home and the cycle continued, even through the pain and the questions that Gimli had no strength or knowledge to answer.

It might have been days or hours when Gimli was thrown back into his cell. Legolas awaited him and his delicate hands were immediately examining his wounds. The elf was no healer, but it made them both feel better to pretend.

Gimli saw that Legolas' braids had been cut, hacked off with a knife. Gimli touched his nearly shorn hair weakly.

"You look even more a boy now," Gimli chuckled tiredly.

"A gift for my father," Legolas explained. "The Uruk-hai wanted my fingers first but the White Wizard decided that this would suffice. For now."

"Are you hurt?" Gimli asked.

Legolas shook his head. "I understand the orcs only a little. They seem to think that elves are too delicate, that our hearts will break and we will die if we are handled too roughly. And that dwarves have no hearts and are impossible to kill."

"Let us hope that they do not figure out the truth then," Gimli replied. 

Legolas murmured, "Rest, friend. Close your eyes now."

Gimli curled into Legolas' surprising warmth. "Just a few moments then."

***

Legolas had never been good at estimating time. When he was very young, he had thought the sun rose and set five times a day. Life was both a blink and an eternity. So he did not know how long they were captive. He could only measure it by the number of times the guards changed out, the number of times Gimli was dragged away, and the number of times they came for Legolas.

Legolas would be held down in the cell while an orc with a thin blade slowly sliced into him. He outlined Legolas' fingers, cutting deeper into the lines of his hands, flicking out pieces of his knuckles. 

They did not ask Legolas any questions. They simply worked on pieces of him, as if to amuse themselves while they waited for Gimli's torturers to grow bored.

Legolas would no longer be bleeding by the time Gimli was returned to him but they both were losing their strength. Legolas had not been raised to be physically affectionate, but he clung to Gimli and the dwarf held him just as fiercely, even if it pained them both.

There was no question about what it meant. They needed to feel that the other was still alive. There was always hope if the other was still alive.

***  
Legolas first heard the water when it drowned out the machines, smoke rising from quenched fires. The screams of orcs as they fled, trying to escape. The cavern was flooding and if he was not freed, he would drown. 

But in his fear he whispered, "Gimli."

Legolas banged on his bars loudly, shouting at the orc nearest him to let him out. The orc came closer and Legolas reached through the gaps and snapped its neck. It fell with a thud and Legolas picked its pockets to grab the keys and two throwing knives. He freed himself, both mortified at what he had done and embarrassed he had not thought of it sooner.

Legolas ran further up the causeway, ignoring any who ran past him. He had one goal and one goal only. He didn't need revenge. He needed Gimli. 

The scream alerted Legolas and he ran forward, seeing the torture chamber. Even with a dagger, Legolas' aim was straight and true. It sliced through the orc on the right, distracting the one on the left long enough for Gimli to rip through the rope on his wrist and grab it by the throat. Legolas tossed his second blade and it went straight through the orc's head. It fell with a thud.

Legolas ran to Gimli and untied him, both saying a hundred things at once. Legolas clasped his face in hands and both looked at the other in quiet understanding. 

"We need to go," Legolas insisted. 

Legolas helped him off the table and Gimli stumbled, barely able to stand. Legolas picked him up and carried him, with only mild complaining from the dwarf. He ran down the causeway, only to see the water rising further. Legolas could see the sky, jus through a pinhole, but it would be enough. 

"Do you swim?" Legolas demanded. 

Gimli shook his head. "Nay."

Legolas grasped Gimli's hand. "Do not let go."

The water crashed into them and Legolas opened his eyes as the artificial surf bore on him. He could make out a little, enough to know which way was up.

"When I say so, take a deep breath and hold it," Legolas instructed. 

Gimli gripped his hand as another wave tossed them against the wall. Before the next break, Legolas shouted, "Go!"

The elf filled his lungs and dove into the water. He held tightly onto Gimli, kicking desperately to get them both to the surface. The water was dark and gritty, but Legolas' eyes were sharp and he had always been drawn to the light.

Legolas broke the surface and pulled Gimli with him. The dwarf coughed hard and Legolas held them still as the battle waged around them. Legolas was not sure what was more unbelievable: there were Ents attacking Isengard or that he had just heard the voices of Merry and Pippin. 

One of the Ents plucked them from the water and placed them on dry land before going back to the fight. Legolas instinctively reached for his bow, forgetting it was now at the bottom of the watery pit.

Gimli put his hand on his arm. "They have won this battle without us. See how the enemy flees even with the white wizard in his tower. Our part is just to survive."

And survive they did.

***

The Rohirrim arrived a day later to celebrate their victory and to secure the area. Gimli and Legolas were invited to return to Edoras with them in order to fight alongside the people of Rohan and Gondor.

Both were still weary for home, but neither thought about turning back now. The comfort they sought was with the other. It didn't matter where they were, as long as they were together.


End file.
